 "Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan")
The Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship on Tuesday launched the IndiaSkills 2023-24 programme and felicitated WorldSkills 2022 winners. India had secured 11th position in the global competition last year.
Addressing the event, Union Minister for Skill Development Dharmendra Pradhan called for increasing the number of participants to 2.5 million from 0.25 million last year, as it would provide impetus to the ecosystem to enhance competency over acquiring degrees. The minister also highlighted the importance of introducing employable skills, which would increase market acceptance of the workforce.
“We have to give equal importance to competencies, applied knowledge and hands-on training to lead in the 21st century, and also highlight the need for mapping skill gaps to reduce the gap between degrees earned and skills acquired,” the minister said.
IndiaSkills is the precursor to the WorldSkills competition. Participants who will excel in IndiaSkills at the national level will take part in the global event in Paris next year. WorldSkills is the largest skill competition in the world, held once every two years, conducted by WorldSkills International, which has 86 member countries.
These competitions provide both a benchmark for high performance and a way to assess vocational excellence among the workforce. It saw participation from more than 200 industry and academic partners like Toyota Kirloskar, Mahindra, Saint Gobain, Larsen & Toubro, Maruti Suzuki, and Infosys.
WorldSkills competition 2022 saw over 1,000 competitors from 58 countries in 61 skills. India participated in 50 skills including new-age skills like robot system integration, additive manufacturing, industry 4.0, digital construction, mobile application development, and renewable energy. It secured 11th position, its best ranking so far, since it started participating in 2007.
